4 ms·
Not so much a software bug, but back in my early days (late 1990s) supporting an office network in London there was a computer where the mouse was making the cu
by frereubu 10y ago
Not so much a software bug, but back in my early days (late 1990s) supporting an office network in London there was a computer where the mouse was making the cursor behave erratically during roughly the same period every afternoon. We swapped out the mouse, the controller card, even the computer - effectively replacing all the physical equipment - and nothing seemed to stop it. We went through all sorts of ideas - too near the microwave, heavy fax machine usage, someone's mobile phone - until we realised that it was optical mouse, and the sun would shine through that window each afternoon at the same time and screw up the sensor in the mouse. We stuck a bit of cardboard to the side of the desk and it never happened again.
- nom 10y agoHaha awesome. I once was fooled by the sun, too. I noticed an unusual high power consumption of several KWh in my logs. They always appeared at the same time, almost up to the same minute. So it turns out there is a very small time slot where the sun can reach through a window into the hallway. That was enough to offset the light sensor that I attached to the power meter inside the closet. The threshold was set too tight. Think about the possible sources that influence this 'bug': - the month - the time of day - the weather / state of the clouds - open/close state of the bathroom door - reflectivity of the hallway (objects, doors open/closed)
- prawn 10y agoWe had an office alarm system that would occasionally trigger incorrectly. It was movement and heat sensitive. The alarm would trigger on weekend afternoons. We were puzzled for weeks until it turned out to be a combination of the second hand on a clock and the sun shining through a window and warming it up.
- heywire 10y agoTowards the end of summer, one of my Raspberry-pi security cameras starts detecting "motion" in the form of the sunlight dancing on the wall when the fluffy clouds float by :)
- justinpombrio 10y agoAlert! Either break-in, or fluffy cloud!
- throwanem 10y agoAlert! What a lovely afternoon!
- oaktowner 10y agoSun shining through a window in London? Everything else in the story is believable, but... ;-)
- mdip 10y agoToo funny, though, I'd be willing to bet "the same time every afternoon" was more that it happened at the same time in the afternoon when it failed which probably made it even more painful to isolate since it was reliant on the sun appearing in an area not known for sunlight.